


don't waste time

by Magpied_Spider



Series: Children shall not be put to death for the sins of their father [3]
Category: Sky High (2005)
Genre: Gen, also featuring the sidekick squad, and the bullies Speed and Lash, as well as Freeze Girl (making a last-minute appearance), with Ron Wilson: Bus Driver
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-22
Updated: 2016-11-22
Packaged: 2018-09-01 11:18:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8622559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Magpied_Spider/pseuds/Magpied_Spider
Summary: He notices Stronghold’s-now-ex-girlfriend-Gwen standing behind the podium just before Principal Powers asks her to take the microphone. Warren mentally prepares himself for five minutes of “thank you to everyone who made all of this possible,” and snags a tiny sandwich from one of the plates on the trestle tables. Chicken, and some kind of relish. He presses it between his palms, toasting it lightly, before taking a bite. It’s not bad. 
  Homecoming, etc.





	

**Author's Note:**

> me: i'll publish the next part soon, everyone  
> me: discovers _Hamilton_ , tumbles headfirst into the abyss  
> me: ... look, better late than never. it's here now.
> 
> title from a softer world #377 (you might have noticed that theme by now) "Now you make sure he knows that your curfew is eleven. And honey? / I know the sort of things that happen on prom night. Just try to remember / we all die alone. / [so don't waste time]"  
> 

Master manipulator of freshmen or not, Gwen Grayson clearly knows how to throw a party: the gym has been decked out to the max.

As well as music – loud enough to be heard, not loud enough to cross the bounds into uncomfortable, good – there are mood lights, tables with trays of canapés, and he counts three disco balls… as well as a few obviously-drunk seniors trying to look cool as they “dance”.

Warren almost trips over the tail of one of the guys, but he avoids it and edges towards the less-crowded side of the room.

As the crowd moves around him, he spots Layla – bright green dress, of course – and arrives at her end of the food table to hear her complaining to some teacher that “the guys at this school are jerks.”

“Thanks a lot,” he says jokingly.

She spins around, red hair whirling – she obviously wasn’t expecting him, if the expression on her face is anything to go by. She looks him up and down.

“I thought you weren’t going to rent a tux?”

Maybe she _had_ been expecting him to turn up in his usual jeans-and-a-jacket ensemble. It would have been easier, that’s for sure.

“It’s my dad’s,” Warren half-explains. “He doesn’t have much use for it in solitary.”

That was half a joke – his father isn’t in solitary confinement, just a regular-if-high-security power-damping facility – but Layla doesn’t take it as such, instead looking mildly alarmed.

Warren can almost see her casting about for a way to change the subject.

“Cheese cube?” She offers, holding one up.

He takes it – pointing out that he’s lactose intolerant would only make the situation worse.

~

The chatter subsides quickly as the music is turned off in preparation for the – Warren suppresses a shudder – announcements.

It’s always the same “thank you all for coming!” crap, but they’ll have to go through it anyway, pretending to listen to painfully-obviously prepared oh-I-just-don’t-know-what-to-says and clap in the middle of speeches, thinking they’re over.

Warren surreptitiously deposits the cheese cube in an empty glass on one of the tables and checks his pocket watch – he’d come a bit late, but there were still hours left to go – as Principal Powers makes her way to the lectern.

“First some quick announcements,” she begins, “the owner of the blue cold-fusion powered jetpack—“ _what?_ “—you left your lights on.”

“That’s probably Medulla,” he mutters to Layla, who nods back. He thinks he can see the Mad Science teacher’s overgrown head weaving its way through the crowd.

He notices Stronghold’s-now-ex-girlfriend-Gwen standing behind the podium just before Principal Powers asks her to take the microphone. Warren mentally prepares himself for five minutes of “thank you to everyone who made all of this possible,” and snags a tiny sandwich from one of the plates on the trestle tables.

Chicken, and some kind of relish. He presses it between his palms, toasting it lightly, before taking a bite. It’s not bad.

“…the most powerful super-being ever to walk the halls of Sky High,” she’s saying, and something seems… off. Warren frowns as he finishes his mouthful – she’s walking away from the lectern, with a swagger more arrogant than he’s ever seen on anyone outside of a TV-supervillain.

“ _ME!_ ”

She’s quick-changed into some kind of armor, which is sending out waves of electricity, pulling two signs that read ROYAL PAIN across.

This is… a really _weird_ prank.

Not just in terms of content, but in terms of timing: they’re only about a month into the year, the senior prank is a ages away.

Focusing, as many people do, on the mundane when faced with the extraordinary, a part of Warren wonders why she’s got defined cleavage-plates – an issue that quickly gets shoved to the side as the rest of his brain registers _gun!_

It’s… not really a gun, it’s some kind of blaster-ray type object, but it cements in Warren’s mind, as well as the minds of everyone around him, that this is not just a prank: Royal Pain is prepared to wreak havoc.

Frankly, he’s surprised none of the adults – isn’t there meant to be some kind of qualified Hero to get the Hero-of-the-Year award? – are doing anything.

An adult voice calling out in confusion, “Royal Pain… is a girl?” _might_ explain the boob-plates.

“ _Yes I’m a girl, you idiot,_ ” a deep, distorted voice replies. “ _How I ever lost to a fool like you, I’ll never know. Now, prepare to be_ pacified.”

Warren wonders if “pacified” should have a capital letter.

The gun – _pacifier?_ – fires a bright, white ray into the crowd, and everyone ducks down. _Is this not the sort of situation we’ve been discussing in class for the past six months_? Warren wonders.

Normally, Principal Powers’ Neutralization abilities would have already ended any contest, but the fact that Gwen – Royal Pain? – is relying on something ready-made rather than her powers per se means that any power-damping abilities are pointless.

Warren shields his eyes from the blast as the two red-white-and-blue-bedecked Heroes-of-the-Year are taken out, and starts scanning for exits as the crowd panics, moving like a mob towards the doors they came through.

Warren doesn’t even bother with those – they’ve got power-damping mesh that’s already been released by Grayson’s helpers. They’re a security measure that’s convenient in case of a lockdown, wherein a Supervillain won’t be able to get through the doors, but unfortunately, they’re incredibly _un_ helpful when people are trying to get _out_.

There must be other exits.

Grayson continues to fire into the crowd, and the sound of babies crying makes Warren do a double take: he’d assumed the gun was disintegrating the heroes, like… most any villain, not… turning them into babies.

Warren has precious little experience with the infant form of humans, and tends let someone else wait the tables when a customer comes into the Paper Lantern with one in tow, but the little experience he _has_ had has not endeared them to him, to put it lightly.

They’re getting underfoot. Gross.

Coach Boomer runs at him, food still in one hand. “Hothead!” He calls out, “Find an exit!” _no shit_ “Get as many people out as you can!”

He starts shooing them away, before turning back to – what, scream at her? Warren ignores him, and keeps looking for another way out, as the squad of sidekicks that he’s accumulated over the past few weeks starts to rally around him.

Exit found: an access vent that is big enough to crawl through. He lights up a hand and throws a searing fireball at it, splitting it off as it flies into four separate sections, liquefying the bolts. The grate clatters to the ground.

Layla and Magenta both crawl through first, followed by Zach – which is fair enough, he _is_ the one best equipped to defend them, after all.

The tunnel actually widens out as they crawl – and they only notice because they’ve suddenly not got walls pressing in on both sides.

“Hey Warren,” says _melting-kid_ -Ethan, “How about a torch?”

While fire does put out light, the lowest temperature would probably send them all coughing – not to mention that the heat would radiate off the metal they’re surrounded by.

“Only if you want to get barbecued,” he replies.

A greenish light comes from in front of him – a cartoonish-radiation green – and Zach starts to crawl past Magenta and Layla, leading the way. “Ladies,” he says, “If I may…”

“Way to _glow_ , Zach,” offers Ethan. Magenta, Layla, and Warren both groan at the easy pun, but Zach just thanks him.

They crawl along that way for a few more twists and turns, before Zach calls out that they’ve reached a grate. The tunnel’s narrowed off again, so they might have to backtrack so Warren can bust them out.

“Move over,” Warren says, starting to push his way through, “I’m sure I can-“

There’s a _ka-thump_ , and the greenish glow vanishes, replaced by the fluorescent light from the hallway.

Warren _thinks_ he hears Zach say, “Sup, kid!” but he can’t be sure.

“We’re still in the dark,” Magenta points out, as they clamber out.

Wonder of wonders, Stronghold’s turned up. Better late than never, Warren supposes.

He’s slightly puffed, and more-than-slightly panicked. “Guys,” he says, “You’ll never believe this. Gwen—“

“Is Royal Pain’s daughter,” Layla posits. Odd: Warren thought that she _was_ Royal Pain… although he _had_ slept through a few lessons of Local Heroic History last year, and it’s entirely possible that Royal Pain isn’t a new Villain on the block.

Will looks flummoxed that they already know this. “Right, and she—“

“Stole the pacifier,” Warren supplies.

Will blinks. “ _Right_ , and—“

“And she turned everyone into babies including your parents, dude.” Zach summarizes.

Will stares.

“O…. kay, that, I didn’t know.”

“I think this might be even more than the great Will Stronghold can handle,” Layla says – and, while it’s a little bit of a poke at how Will has apparently been ditching their group for the past however-long, at least she’s not letting the whole ‘relationship drama’ thing get in the way of saving the entire school.

“She’s right,” Will says, facing the group, as if they weren’t listening. “It’s going to take all of us.”

Warren doesn’t raise his eyebrows, but it’s a near thing. They’ve got: a guy who glows; another guy who _literally_ melts under pressure; he still doesn’t know what Magenta’s power is, but given that she’s a sidekick it can’t be anything spectacular; and… something plant-based.

Plus him and Stronghold to do the (literal) heavy lifting. He doesn’t want to rain on their parade, but this… doesn’t look like it’s going to go well.

“All of who? You and Warren?” Warren’s glad it’s Magenta that’s spoken up – it’s always awkward to bring up Sidekicks’ less-than-amazing-powers when you yourself can light stuff on fire. “The rest of us are only sidekicks.”

“Just because you _have_ powers, that doesn’t make you a hero. Sometimes it just makes you a jerk.” Will says, and while it’s sweet, Warren has to wonder if this is really the best time to apologize for acting like a shit friend, given that the longer they stand around, the more of the school population gets turned into babies.

Also: _babies._ What the hell kind of plan is that?

“Makes _me_ a jerk,” Will continues. “I guess what I’m trying to say is—“

Layla, thankfully, gets to the point with, “We get it, you’ve been a jerk.”

Will locks eyes with her. “Layla,” he says, “Just in case my homecoming date ends up killing me tonight, I just want you to know—“ and then he pulls her in for a kiss.

Well, at least they’ve cleared _those_ issues up. Warren’s about to cut in, maybe point out that they need to actually come up with a plan, when a voice cuts through them.

“Isn’t that _sweet_?” Penny, the entire cheer squad. “I _hate_ sweet,” she/they continue, accompanied by a mocking laugh from Lash.

This is going to be a fight for sure, and Warren has no mind to ruin his father’s jacket – fire retardant, it is not. He pulls it off as the sidekicks start crawling back into the vent.

Yeah, “you can do whatever you put your mind to!” is all very well, but when push comes to shove, glowing isn’t going to do much against super-speed.

“You guys are a part of this, too,” Will says – stalling for time, good. “Why am I not surprised?”

“Go take care of Gwen,” Warren tells Will. “We’ll handle these clowns.”

This isn’t Save the Citizen – he can run as hot as he likes, and he only needs to get one hit in. Plus, the corridors aren’t wide enough for Speed to create another oxygen-sucking vortex, he has the advantage here.

“Go,” Layla encourages, and Stronghold _runs through the wall_.

It’s probably meant to be a display of his super-strength, but given that it’s just plasterboard, Warren’s pretty sure anyone with a half-decent run-up could put a foot-sized hole in it pretty easily.

He doesn’t waste time reflecting on this, and lights up his hands – _just one hit, come on_ – as Speed runs by.

If someone were to ask Warren about this sort of situation in class, he’d say something like: revenge is petty, if he were the hero he’d just take them on in a first come, first served basis; he might even throw in a sarcastic “A villain that actually runs away if he knows he’s not going to win? What a novel, sensible idea!”

But in the moment, Warren is thinking about Save the Citizen, and how he’d like Speed to feel as powerless as Warren was in the centre of that vortex.

He jogs after Speed, not wasting energy: the corridors of Sky High are circular and forgiving – which is great if you get lost, and even better if you need to find someone when they’re empty.

He’ll run into the guy soon enough.

Speed, sure enough, is in the next corridor – he was going the opposite way, but he manages to stop and reverse direction before Warren can loose the fireball.

“Right here!” he taunts, “Hit this!”

He whizzes away again, and Warren snarls – the taunt only fuels his fire, because he knows that Speed has _no idea_ how hot his flames can get.

He just needs to hit him once.

Calculating for a moment, he turns into another corridor, to find Speed… speeding, out of control. If Warren were paying attention to the floor, he’d see skid marks on the floor, but as it is, he only has eyes for his target.

He hurls a fireball far beyond regulation temperatures at Speed, and he crashes headfirst into a wall, on fire.

Warren turns back to the corridor, where Ethan is picking himself up from the floor.

The sidekick was evidently the reason for Speed’s loss of control, and Warren offers him a smile and a hi-five. “Way to go, Popsicle,” he says.

Ethan grins.

They go off in search of the rest of them – again, if this were presented in class, Warren would bemoan the fact that the “hero” left the remainder of the mooks to a sidekick whose powers he didn’t even know – but Layla finds them first.

“We don’t have to worry about Penny,” she says – and _wow_ , does that make Warren wonder how powerful her plant-abilities are – “but she said that Gwen – Royal Pain – do we call her Royal Pain or do we still call her—“

“Whatever,” Warren prompts, “What’s she done?”

“Sabotaged the antigravs.”

They’re doomed. The thought comes to Warren immediately, followed by _you promised this would be as painless as possible_ – an absurd reaction, given their situation.

There’s a moment of silence, broken only by the _thunk_ of Zach and Magenta returning to the corridor from the vent. “Is it safe to come out?” Magenta asks.

“Depends,” Warren replies without thinking. “Can we really say it’s ‘safe’ if we’re in imminent danger of falling out of the sky?”

Grayson is a technopath, and there’s no chance that she botched the sabotage; they’re doomed.

“Come on, guys,” says ever-the-optimist-Layla, “We’ll be able to fix it, right?”

Ok, there’s _optimistic_ and then there’s _has no idea of the complexity of the situation._ They’ve only just started antigravs in Mad Science, and Warren’s sure that—

“Yeah, there should be blueprints.” Ethan seems strangely confident.

They find blueprints in the office – Warren stands guard in case any more of Gwen’s ‘friends’ show up while the sidekick squad pours over it.

“There’s a main access tunnel,” Ethan says, pointing at the rolled-out-paper. “A secondary one in case the first one is unusable, plus a number of smaller pipes for the actual cables.”

Warren flicks his hair out of his eyes as he turns to check the other side of the corridor. He can hear Magenta’s frown from the doorway as she asks rhetorically, “Didn’t Royal Pain seal off every route?”

There’s a moment of concerned silence – perhaps they’re accepting their impending deaths. A toughness secondary wouldn’t help the sort of injury that the rapid deceleration of Sky High would cause – you’d need indestructibility as a primary, and even then, you’d still have to deal with the building collapsing around you.

If someone like Stronghold were thrown out the window, they might make it, but the whole population, still stuck in the school? No chance.

“Hey, what about this conduit?” Ethan’s pointing at something; Warren gives a final glance around the corridor before leaning in to have a look.

It looks like a very thin line.

“Yeah right,” Zach says, “You’d have to be like a rat to get in there.” Something in his voice changed as he spoke, and he ends the sentence with a lilt that’s almost a question.

One by one, everyone looks at Magenta, who doesn’t even protest. “Great,” she says instead, with her characteristic lack of emotion.

Warren’s _really_ curious about her power now.

They find the entry point for the conduit, and without fanfare or announcement, Magenta takes about a second to transform into a dark-furred guinea pig, complete with a purple streak in its fur.

“That is a really, _really_ specific power,” Warren observes, as Zach carefully picks her up and deposits her in the pipe.

“Tell me about it,” she says, and Warren has to bite his tongue from laughing at her voice – it’s as though she’s inhaled helium, but is still managing to sound completely unimpressed.

Ethan starts reading out directions, and Warren starts to feel that he might have underestimated the sidekick. He might not be fantastic at applying solutions on paper, but give him something to follow and he’ll get it done like nobody’s business.

“I’m going to go find Gwen and St— Will,” Warren announces. “It’s not like I’m any help here.”

Ethan nods in acknowledgement as Zach says, “Cool, dude.”

“I’ll come with you,” Layla immediately says.

“Sure,” Warren allows – she did take care of Penny by herself, after all – “But no doing anything stupid in the name of love, all right?”

She gives a bark of laughter that almost verges on hysterical in response.

They make their way towards the gym, and as they get closer, the sound of electrical blasts and the telltale _thump-crash_ of a fistfight starts to ring through the air.

The doors have been opened, and the place is devoid of the students-turned-babies, so Warren and Layla run in through the main entrance.

Stronghold and his ex-girlfriend are grappling, evidence of their fight strewn around them in the form of upturned tables and holes in the floor. He looks as if he’s about to gain the upper hand, actually – Warren stops, holding out his hand in front of Layla, so they don’t distract him.

She evidently doesn’t analyse situations in the same way as him – or maybe she’s just concerned for her new boyfriend – because she calls out to him.

Stronghold looks up, and Pain punches him through the window, shattering it.

Warren can hear Layla yelling beside him, but he’s barely aware of his arms holding her back; his eyes are glued to the empty place that used to hold Will.

Grayson’s plan might be to turn everyone into babies, but she’s clearly not about to hesitate about killing. She _didn’t_ hesitate about killing.

Then another part of Warren’s brain catches up, and tells him that super-strength tends to fall under the indestructibility umbrella, and that Will is probably lying in a crater somewhere in Maxville, battered but alive.

He’s out of the fight, though, that’s for sure.

 _“And there goes your last chance of stopping me_ ,” Grayson crows, giving a chuckle.

“We’ll see about _that_ ,” Layla growls, and Warren has to agree: he might not agree that it’ll be _her_ that deals the final blow, but he can get to the melting point of titanium, and that’s _without_ situational stressors.

He moves in front of her, ready to throw some flames, but he – doesn’t.

There’s a blurred shape behind Grayson – a red-white-and-blue shape, getting closer, _flying_ closer.

Grayson must have some sort of camera system in the back of her head – that, or she saw him staring past her – and she whirls around, giving a gasp.

“Surprised?” Will’s voice calls out, sounding for all the world that he’s just tripped over and found a quarter on the ground. “So am I!”

“ _You’re flying?”_ Even through the distorted voice, Grayson sounds _outraged_. “That’s _impossible!_ ”

Will flies through the hole he made in his less-impressive exit, aiming straight for her.

Warren’s…. honestly not surprised. The toughness secondary is a power that tends to be overlooked, but it’s the reason that Sky High can drop cars on its students with impunity, and the reason that Save the Citizen can even function: even sidekicks with the most useless superpowers tend to have a secondary power lending them more able to take a hit and come back swinging than any normal human.

Super-strength tends to be seen as an extension of that – if toughness is tier 1, then super-strength is tiers 2 through to 7, and it’s _incredibly_ hereditary.

Plus, if that’s Will’s primary, then he’s still got room for a secondary.

Hence the flying, Warren supposes.

Will’s grabbed Grayson and dropped her down onto the floor, denting it. He raises a fist – Warren’s suddenly glad Coach Boomer isn’t here, because he’d give the guy a D for that sort of sloppy technique – and punches her helmet.

He must have pulled it, unconsciously or no, because there’s no damage to her head. In fact, her hair tumbles out.

He’s hesitating, now, as Warren and Layla go towards him.

It’s possible that he’s still attracted to her, and is thus finding it difficult to punch her in the face – and while Warren can appreciate that, he’s been in a locker room with _Joey Mitchell_ and still been able to weigh up the pros and cons of his actions. If he hadn’t, chances were there’d be _another_ reason that none of his classmates would sit next to him at lunch, but that’s neither here nor there.

Either way, if that were Joey Mitchell right there, he’d be able to put him down for sure.

“She’s unconscious,” Will explains, getting up, and Warren feels a flash of _something_ – unease? – at the fact that he would have definitely killed the girl if he were in Stronghold’s place.

It’s possible that his pragmatism is more similar to his father’s than he’d ever accept anyone saying.

Will immediately goes to hug his new girlfriend, and Warren pats him on the shoulder – he did well, did Will – only to have it quickly come off as the entire school starts to fall.

A part of Warren appreciates that their Villain actually had a failsafe in place in case of her plan falling through, but that’s much outweighed by the fear coming from the knowledge that they’re probably all about to die.

Stronghold immediately leaps out the window, and while if it were anyone else, Warren would assume that they’d jumped ship to save their own skin, he’s pretty sure that Will’s too kind-hearted to do that.

A momentary lull in their acceleration downwards tells him that Will is probably trying to lift the entire school from the ground.

Which, given the size of the school, plus the momentum it’s already gathered, would place him in at least tier 5 – maybe 6 – if he managed to actually stop it from falling under his own power.

Distantly, crouching on the ground with Layla – who’s grabbed his hand and is almost bruising it – Warren wonders if Ethan, Magenta, and Zach have made any sort of progress with the antigravs, or if Magenta’s tiny guinea pig body had gotten lost in the mess of pipes.

He wonders if Ethan would survive the inevitable collapse of the school if he were in goo form.

He wonders if the Paper Lantern will survive – they’re barely keeping afloat with their finances, and actually paying a waiter might be enough to tip them over the edge.

He wonders if his mother would be told that he died, or if she’d have to find out herself.

He wonders how long it will take for his _dad_ to find out that he’s died, that the reason he hasn’t visited is because he’s dead, not because he stopped wanting to listen to what his father had to say, he wonders if anyone will think to _tell_ him—

A lurch in his gut that has nothing to do with his rolling emotions jerks him out of hypotheticals and back into the present.

They’re… slowing.

There’s a weird moment of where Warren feels his organs are still trying to fall as the rest of him stops, and then it increases as they start to rise, climbing back into the sky.

So the sidekick-squad-minus-Layla managed to get the antigravs back to work. He wonders how close they came to the ground, but before he can voice the question, Layla’s pulling at his hand.

“Come on!”

He frowns in confusion – Grayson is still unconscious on the floor, they’re heading back to the school’s usual position in the sky – there’s nothing urgent that needs to be done except call the UHU, and that wouldn’t account for Layla’s tone of voice.

“The babies,” she says, and _oh._ The _babies_. Their classmates. Their _teachers_. In baby form.

Warren cannot express through words how much he doesn’t want to deal with the fallout of Grayson’s plan, but he dutifully follows Layla through the corridors.

They meet up with the remaining sidekick squad, who are still congratulating each other on their rescue of the school, exchange hi-fives, then go to see where the babies have been taken.

The rest of the sidekicks are already there, unloading the babies from the school buses. Warren and Layla set to work alongside them, forming something resembling a production line.

There’s another lurch as the school stills, back to floating at its standard altitude. About a minute later, Will arrives. He seems slightly out of breath, but by no means exhausted – in fact, he rips open the back of one of the buses so they can get to it more easily.

It occurs to Warren that what they’re doing is so far away from any kind of normal, he’s lost track of any possible situation to compare it to.

His former classmates and teachers are _babies_ , each strapped into a booster seat, lining the grass of his school.

“Now what?” Layla asks, as if there could possibly be a way forwards.

Warren takes another baby – this one can’t be anyone but Medulla, with a head like that – and almost drops it as it speaks.

“Perhaps I can be of assistance,” Medulla says, in a voice with a pitch eerily similar to Magenta-in-guinea-pig-form, but instantly recognizable as belonging to the Mad Science teacher.

Warren stares.

“It should only take me a couple of hours to reconfigure the pacifier,” Medulla continues, lisping slightly. “Mister Peace, could you please carry me to the Mad Science lab?”

Now _there’s_ a phrase Warren didn’t ever think he’d hear in his lifetime. “Sure.”

“And Mister Peace?”

There’s something slightly sinister in Medulla’s voice this time, and Warren is already dreading what the answer might be as he asks, “Yeah?”

“Regrettably, I have made boom-boom,” snickers Medulla.

The others all take a step back from him – and Warren tries not to inhale too much.

“I am not changing a teacher’s diaper.” Warren asserts.

There’s a chorus of “Bags not!” and Zach is the last one to catch on.

“Aww, man!

Ethan ends up as the primary Lab assistant after it becomes clear that he’s much better at determining which whateverscope is which – “No, not that one – the one to the left – the _left_ , the _left_ , Mister Peace!” – and Warren goes back out to the steps.

The sidekicks-plus-Will are all sitting, staring at the sky, talking about everything and nothing in the way friends so often do. “I’m just saying,” Layla is just saying, as he sits down next to them, “We’d better get at least veto power for—hey, Warren, how’s the anti-pacifier going?”

“Slower than Medulla expected, which is still pretty fast,” Warren admits. “They should have a working prototype done in another half hour.”

“Wonder how the press is going to take it,” Magenta muses. “A bunch of sidekicks saving Sky High.”

“That’s if it even reaches the press,” Layla points out. “It might just get put under wraps like the whole Matruchloran incident and no-one who wasn’t there will ever find out.”

“Matruchloran?” Will asks.

“Yeah,” Layla says, “It was a—“ then she catches herself, filling in the silence by circling her hand. “A thing. Don’t worry about it.”

“Did anyone even end up calling the UHU?” Warren hadn’t found out.

“The You-ate-who-now?” Zach asks.

Warren stares at him. “The… unified… heroic… union?”

There’s a flash of recognition on Zach’s face, and the others nod: apparently, they’d also not recognized the acronym, but were too uncertain to ask. All of them shake their heads.

Well, as long as Medulla manages to de-pacify all the former adults, there isn’t really any reason to call after all. “Did anyone bring a pack of cards?” Warren asks.

Magenta produces one from somewhere, and starts dealing them out. “Snap, Go Fish, or are we diving straight into poker?”

 ~

It’s impossible to really tell which baby used to be which person, but after the first few tries – all boys, to the relief of Medulla and Ethan both – they develop a system: grab baby, place baby on table, place blanket over baby’s body, zap.

The resulting adult or teenager is thus not completely naked and extremely confused in a science lab, only the latter.

The re-aged person is then sent back to the hall to collect their clothes, get changed, and ideally grabs a baby – the process of getting the babies from the front of the school to the science lab is the longest step, and the more hands they have for that, the better.

The baby that used to be Boomer isn’t among the first wave of people re-aged, so someone grabs a megaphone to give out instructions, which is quickly commandeered by Principal Powers.

“People, if you’ve already been depacified, please, find your clothes, grab a baby, and report to the science lab.”

Will’s gone off to talk to his parents, who had been depacified one after the other. Presumably to tell them that, surprise, he’s got flying powers as well as super-strength and also that he saved the entire school from his evil ex-girlfriend.

The guy who’d introduced himself as Ron Wilson: Bus Driver (Warren had almost _heard_ the punctuation) was giving a quiet but intense recount of how he’d stopped Pain’s accomplice from driving off with a flying bus full of the baby Supers.

Some teacher in a blue suit – the one who was guarding the punch bowl – and holding the hero of the year trophy, edges past Warren, who steps forward to let him pass, before stepping back again, because the tales have now progressed to Ethan detailing how he’d managed to trap Lash in a bathroom stall, and returned the favour of the almost-daily swirlies he’d been receiving.

Ron Wilson: Bus Driver seems to be taking an amount of satisfaction in the tale that makes Warren suspect the two might have had a history.

“Yeah, that was, that was a thing,” Warren hears him say, but he’s got his eyes on the teacher, who seems to be presenting the trophy to the Strongholds.

Warren is not going to make a comment about the families of those left behind, he’s not. Everything turned out ok, he was not idle in preventing a Supervillain plot to… presumably rule the world through turning everyone into babies? He’s still not sold on that idea, but either way, he’s officially a Good Guy.

Maybe this’ll result in an entire week of substitute teachers and fellow students not giving him a side-eye in class.  
Warren blinks out of his thoughts, eyes caught by the movement of Ethan, who is now demonstrating the skidding of Speed. Warren gives half a smile, which in turn results in a grin from Ethan.

The Popsicle’s not half bad.

Jetstream – who, honestly, Warren has never had anything against; it was the Commander that was at the heart of the whole putting-his-dad-away-thing – has turned to their group, followed by the Commander, who is holding the trophy.

“It belongs to them,” she says, adding, “the Sidekicks,” as if it wasn’t clear. “I mean _hero support_ ,” she adds, unconvincingly, much in the same way someone might correct “gay” to “homosexual” – unnecessary within the context and also slightly patronizing.

Warren’s not bitter.

“Why don’t we just call them what they really are, Josie? Heroes.” The Commander holds out the trophy, and, one-by-one, all the sidekicks grab it, Magenta finishing with a single finger on top of the book the figurine is holding up.

Warren doesn’t even try; it’s not for him, and anyway, he’s standing slightly out of arm’s reach – potentially a reaction to the Commander’s presence.

Layla and Will are at his left, and Warren notes Layla doesn’t go in for an honourary trophy grab, which does a little to alleviate the small voice in his ear going “don’t I get a mention?”

He squashes that voice. It’s not his moment; let the little guys have the spotlight for once.

The Commander lets go of the trophy, and he and Jetstream begin to sweep away down the hall, complete with complementary capes, but the Commander pauses in front of the teacher.

“Oh, and Jonathan,” he says, “Whatever you’re teaching them… keep teaching them it.” He offers a handshake, and – Warren can’t think of a teacher by their first name, that’s just wrong – the teacher looks a bit bemused as he takes it.

Jetstream gives him a kiss on the cheek.

Warren takes a glance at Will, who is looking at Layla with slight confusion but mostly something akin to relief. Will catches Warren’s eye, and gives him a shrug.

 ~

Eventually, they gather in the gym. Medulla steps up to the lectern. “I have de-pacified all the babies,” he announces, “and destroyed that horrible weapon _forever_.”

Warren joins in the applause, idly wondering whether it was possible to destroy something _temporarily_.

“Let’s boogie!” Medulla shouts, pressing a remote.

The music’s louder than it was before, skirting the edge of tolerable, and with the voices of the students bouncing off the gym walls, Warren’s head is starting to hurt.

Whether it’s the adrenaline, some kind of hangover from the pacification process, or just the time of night, everyone seems to have obeyed Medulla’s command, and are dancing – whether it’s with each other, as most of the couples seem to be doing, or that teacher with the trophy, who’s busting out the moves to such an extent that a small area devoid of students has formed around him, presumably so they don’t get hit by his flailing arms, or… come to think of it, Layla and Will are nowhere to be seen, which says to Warren that they’ve escaped to do some dancing of their own.

Probably with tongue.

 _Freeze Girl_ – Bianca, they’ve commiserated at previous homecomings where the music was almost deafening, and while he wouldn’t go so far as to call them friends, the relationship between them is friend _ly_ – gives him a smile, freezes her hand, lets it spread up her arm.

It matches her white dress, and there’s something poetic about it: white girl, white dress, white power. Warren tilts his head – _wanna go?_ – and she gives him a smile. He lights up his hand – just the hand, he doesn’t want to risk the sleeve – and takes hers.

There’s a light sizzle as the frost recedes from her arm, and he lets the flames fizzle out as the ice melts.

“Could have been worse,” he says, once they’re out in the hallway.

She shakes her head. “I spotted Boomer making his way to the DJ, thought it’d be best to get out before—“

She’s interrupted by a boom of bass, the music – which had been much quieter in the hall – now at the level it was in the gym before. Warren gets the feeling that if he were to walk back into the gym, he’d actually feel physically sick.

“Thanks for the warning,” he says, as they make their way out of the building. The night air at high altitude is cold enough that it’s doubtful they’d run into anyone – not that the cold has much of an effect on either of the two.

“Yeah, well, you saved the school or something.” Bianca blows a hair off her face.

Warren gives a soft snort. “You seem to be the first person to notice that I was there.”

She shook her head, not in contradiction of his statement, but just in thought. “It’s super weird, I can’t remember any of the stuff that happened. It was like, everyone was panicking, trying to get out of the gym, and then I was in a blanket in the science lab. Naked,” she adds, with a grimace.

“I guess babies don’t remember anything,” Warren replies.

He can still feel the bassline thumping, distant.

“How long is this meant to go?”

Warren pulls out his pocket watch and checks the time. Technically, they’ve still got about twenty minutes before the closing time advertised on the flyers, but it’s more likely than not that the time will be extended – a good portion of the night was lost to the whole baby thing, and Warren doesn’t doubt that the students will want their money’s worth.

Bianca frowns at the watch and somehow manages to raise her eyebrows at the same time. “That’s not quite the, uh, grunge biker look you usually go for.”

“If you find any watch shop that sells heatproof, fireproof watches for under thirty bucks, please tell me,” he deflects.

Bianca sighs, looks up at the sky. The bright lights from the campus shining behind them mean that the stars aren’t the most visible, but there are some.

“Do you reckon Medulla’ll put off the exams after this?”

Warren scoffs. “He didn’t even give us extra time when the class next to us blew a hole through the wall.”

Their chat fades into silence, and they watch the faint stars.

 ~

There is actually a power-damping confinement center in Maxville, but it’s not the one his father’s held in. The Maxville Centre for the Detention of Powered Individuals is more of a holding area than anything else – a place to keep the recently-taken-down Villains while they’re waiting on a trial.

“Barron Battle” is located in a power-damping prison two long bus rides and a train away.

It’s a journey Warren first made when his powers came in – his grandmother had insisted – and while he’d been scared and uncertain at first, it had become a journey that he became familiar with: farmland fading into towns, bus stations, and rows of planted trees. It wasn’t long before he was making it as regularly as his funds would allow, unaccompanied.

He last saw his dad the weekend after the fight with Stronghold – with Will – in the cafeteria.

That had only been a few weeks ago, but it felt far longer than that, as if the gulf between the Warren of the past and the Warren of the present was so vast that only years could have separated them.

He fills in the form, automatic. Peace-comma-Warren. Visiting Peace-comma-Dmitry. Relationship, family.

The power-damping part of the prison is why it’s so effective at housing Supervillains, and it’s by no means a pleasant sensation. Even only in the quasi-waiting room, where the effects aren’t concentrated, the fire burning inside Warren feels somehow muted, like it would take a goodly amount of energy to even get a candle flame flickering.

In some ways, the half-way between freedom of powers and full neutralization – like in the detention room – is worse than the loss altogether: at least once he steps through the doors he knows that he can’t use his powers, can’t access the flames within. The strange limbo in the fuzzy edge of the neutralizing range is unsettling, like there’s no solid ground for him to stand on.

There’s a nod from the lady at the desk to say the paperwork has gone through, the person he’s visiting is waiting. She obviously recognizes him, because she says, “Can you stick to English?” in a tired voice as she waves him through.

Of course, all conversations “Barron Battle” has with the outside world get recorded and sent to the intelligence branch of the UHU. If they default to their usual Rusinglish, which is far more Russ than glish, it has to go through a translator or two, which means more work.

The Perspex separating them is slightly reflective, resulting in a strange superimposing of Warren’s face onto his father’s. There’s a reason no-one mentions his mother much, a reason few people believe him when he tells them he speaks fluent Mandarin and Cantonese, and that reason is he takes after his father in looks to such an extent that it’s almost eerie.

“Hey, Dad.”

“Hey, little rabbit.” Coming from anyone else, the _rabbit warren_ joke would result in fireballs being thrown, or at the very least a cutting remark, but the nickname coming from his father is entangled with all sorts of childhood memories.

Warren laughs. “You won’t believe what’s happened since I last saw you…”

**Author's Note:**

> you can reblog a link to this fic[here! ](http://rowingviolahere.tumblr.com/post/153504336474/title-dont-waste-time-he-notices)


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